Your letters: College strike is about fairness and opportunity

Academic-integrity issues behind the strike “affect the quality of students’ college education and need to be changed,” writes former teacher Frank Gavin of Toronto. (Chris Young / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Sat., Nov. 18, 2017

Striking faculty reject colleges’ contract offer, Nov. 16

Thursday’s “no” vote confirms that the college structure is dysfunctional and also underlines the Kathleen Wynne government’s failure to show leadership in a situation that cries out for the “fairness and opportunity” they brag about. The students’ futures could have been saved if the premier had agreed at the outset to address the precarious working conditions of most faculty.

Money seems to be the colleges’ main concern, with students running a distant, but lately convenient, second.

So here’s a suggestion: Let the faculty and students go back to school and have the administrators stay home (or walk the line if they are so inclined). With the help of the largely part-time support staff, the colleges would be able to deliver education as before. The savings from the salaries of full-time administrators would add greatly to the government’s fund for students in difficulty and the 24 presidents could busy themselves pressuring the mysterious, government-appointed College Employer Council to start negotiating in good faith.

Judy Robinson, Toronto

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Precarious jobs hurt people and our society. If Premier Kathleen Wynne really cares about the underemployed and underpaid, she should take a stand against exploitation in the province’s colleges.

Teachers cannot live on hit-and-miss, underemployment income. Meagre and unpredictable pay can’t possibly encourage the best performance overall. And staffing colleges with a preponderance of part-timers shows our government is not serious about the value of post-secondary education. College teachers should not be treated like casual fast-food employees.

All Ontario political parties should put a stop to systematic exploitation. Will we see a bill to limit part-time staffing before the next election? Don’t hold your breath.

Bruce Rogers, Lindsay, Ont.

There are about 500,000 students caught in the middle of this strike at Ontario colleges. The issues are quite clear: the ratio of part-time to full-time teachers is way out of proportion. In some departments, only 40 per cent are full-time professors.

The part-time teachers receive lower wages but have the same responsibility, and many do not have any office space or health benefits.

And how can you plan courses with other teachers when they might be gone in the next term? Has anyone asked if there are part-time administrators?

The provincial government needs to show some leadership and get the students back into the classroom. They have suffered enough.

Jim Jackson, Aurora

As the college strike drags on, the lack of action is outrageous. The provincial government would have us believe it is not up to them to end the strike. Absolute nonsense. They are responsible for education and should have legislated the teachers back.

The colleges would have you believe they cannot hire more full-time staff. This is something we have to do as a society. We need to provide work. There has to be a way to address that issue.

The union has posted on its website, “One Day Longer, One Day Stronger.” What kind of a message is that to the students? For students, it’s one day longer, one day further from their goals, jobs and hopes. It’s one day longer to pay for when they have no money. It is a shameful message. It is a shameful display of power.

What future student would want to enrol in a college in Ontario if they are going to be faced with the uncertainty of a strike? How would the resulting decline in enrolment help the teachers or the colleges?

Carol Walthers, Aurora

I am a full-time teacher at Seneca College and I am eager to return to my students. But I rejected the College Employer Council’s offer because I know the union negotiators still have a chance to grind out a contract that’s fair to all faculty.

When I finally return to my students after the strike, I want them to know I strongly support equal pay for equal work. This is what I want for them after they graduate, so how can I abandon my own colleagues right now?

Fairness is not too expensive. It’s for our futures as workers in Ontario. It’s a matter of principle. Faculty at our colleges deserve fairness and so do our students.

Mary Gerritsma, Toronto

Don’t let Ontario’s college system suffocate itself, Cohn, Nov. 9

Martin Regg Cohn criticizes college teachers for making academic freedom — something he thinks should matter only to “cutting-edge professors in the rarefied world of research universities” — an issue in their dispute with college management.

I taught in a college for nearly 30 years. Throughout that time, two defining features of the college system particularly concerned me: first, academic managers (chairs and deans) often have no expertise and sometimes no or little training in the academic areas for which they are responsible and, second, most academic managers do not teach once they become managers, even if they are chairs or deans for decades.

What this means is that important decisions about curriculum and assessment are routinely and exclusively made by people who often are, at best, out of touch and, at worst, in the dark. Faculty have no power at all to challenge these decisions, even if they make sense only in terms of cost-saving.

Maybe such realities should be called matters of “educational integrity,” rather than “academic freedom.” Whatever they are called, there is nothing “rarefied” about them. They affect the quality of students’ college education every day and they need to be changed.